CHAPTER III.
CONVERSATION IN A WORK-BOX.
WELL, what do you think of your new life?” said the Scissors, as soon as we were left quietly in the box. Perhaps I had better pause for a moment to describe my new companion, before I record our conversation.
The pair of Scissors, with which I had now to make acquaintance, had rather an old-fashioned air. One end was rounded, the other had been sharp, but a little piece had been broken off the point. I fancy that I detected on one of the handles something reddish, like a little speck of rust, and the brightness of the whole article was dimmed. This was doubtless a mark of antiquity, and it was in the patronizing manner of one who was aware of her own superiority, that Mrs. Scissors repeated her question, “Pray, what do you think of your new life?”
“I have hardly had time to judge,” was my reply; “but I am rather hurt at the way in which that little boy laid the whole blame of his own fault upon me.”
“Oh, that is what you must always expect,” laughed the Scissors; “a bad shearer never has good shears. I’ve been these ten years in the family, and I’ve always found it the same. When Miss Lily took it into her head to imitate the hairdresser, and practise upon Eddy’s flaxen poll, when I glanced aside, and snipped his little ear, whose fault was that but ‘the stupid Scissors’!’ And when I was seized upon to open a nailed box, whose contents the young lady was impatient to see, whose fault was it when my poor point suddenly snapped? why, ‘the good-for-nothing Scissors’,’ to be sure.”
“I hope that I shall not be treated in such a way,” said I, rather alarmed at her words; “it would be too bad, after the trouble that has been taken to form me, after having had to pass to perfection through so many hands, to be snapped by a careless child.”
“You would have nothing but the dust-hole before you,” said the Scissors. I thought the remark very unpleasant.
“I almost wish that I had remained in my mine,” sighed I.
“Oh no,” said a soft voice beside me, and I remarked a beautiful little Thimble, of a metal unknown to me before, so bright, and white, and shining, that I felt at once that it was of superior nature.
“Would you wish,” she continued, “to lie useless, to be of no benefit to any? Has not man refined, formed, polished, improved you, and exerted the powers of his reason to render you an instrument of good?”
“What has man’s reason to do with us?” said I.
“I know not whether I can explain myself clearly,” replied the Thimble, “but I will endeavour to show you what I mean. Man has been gifted with a power called reason; by this he governs the world, by this he subdues creatures stronger than himself, and makes all things combine to serve him. He has discovered that iron possesses a strength which he may turn to valuable account. It would be endless labour to plough the fields, if the ground had to be torn up by the hand; it would be terrible work to reap the corn, if each blade had to be pulled off by the fingers. Man determined to aid his own weakness by the wonderful strength of iron. He made the ploughshare, and the furrows are turned up; he made the sickle, and the sheaves are gathered; huge trees, which he would never have had force to pull down, are laid low by a few strokes of his axe.”
“There is no doubt but that ours is the most useful metal by far,” said the Scissors, with something of a sneer. “Who would use ploughshares, or sickles, or axes of silver? Precious little work they would do!”
“I grant it,” said the Thimble, with perfect good-humour; “but we all have our place in the world, we all have some good purpose to fulfil. Zinc, lead, tin, arsenic, platina, nickel—”
“Stop, stop,” I exclaimed, overwhelmed with such a list; “I never knew there were so many metals before.”
“Mamma, please, will you lay down the hem for me?” said Lily.
“Nay,” replied the Thimble gaily, “I have not numbered one half of them,—
“Manganese, cobalt, rhodium,
Copper, potassium, sodium—”
“Who ever such names bestowed on ’em?
Such long names I hold in odium!”
cried I.
“There’s rhyme, but not reason,” laughed the Thimble.
“If it is hard to number up the metals,” I observed, “how impossible must it be to count all the uses to which they are put!”
“Impossible indeed,” said the Thimble. “Man avails himself every day, every hour, of the treasures which he has won from the mine—for
“Ploughing, digging, and hoeing;
Cooking, ironing, mowing;
Cutting, sawing, and sewing;
Holding the embers glowing;
Speeding the vessel’s going;
Music, when horns are blowing;
Money, when debts are owing;
Bridges, where streams are flowing,
Lace, where finery’s showing;
Greenhouse, where plants are growing—”
“In short, there’s no counting or knowing
All that man to metals is owing!”
cried I.
